Fresh produce selling well in restaurants around capital

Foodservice remains a big business for distributors in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., region.

Many report sales increases.

Demand in the past several years has increased, thanks in part to the bigger presence of celebrity chefs and investors wanting to capitalize on the chefs’ popularity, said Kevin Keany, president of Keany Produce Co., Landover, Md.

White-tablecloth

Keany cites two restaurants — Volt in Frederick, Md., and the Range in Washington, D.C. — which celebrity or high profile chefs opened.

“A lot of celebrity chefs bring a fair amount of buzz to this area,” Keany said.

“When investors and these chefs find one successful concept, they open other concepts. They collaborate with one another at times and will open a restaurant that a couple of celebrity chefs have an interest in.”

Foodservice demand remains strong, he said.

“The restaurant business is moving well here,” Keany said. “Demand over the last year has increased. More people are staying in town.”

In the past, Keany said it seemed like many people would leave town when Congress went into recess, and visit places including Ocean City, Md.

With the new energy many feel, distributors don’t really see that migration much anymore, Keany said.

The huge dips don’t occur as much and business remains fairly stable, he said.

The many activities people can enjoy in the city keep business hopping, Keany said.

“There’s money in this area and with the economy getting better, even when things weren’t so good, people were still eating. We are seeing that people have sort of gotten back to normal compared to five years ago when things were nasty.

“Then, people were being careful with their money and not spending it unwisely. Today, everyone has returned to normal. They have jobs and things are going relatively well for them.”

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Doug Ohlemeier

Doug Ohlemeier, who has written for The Packer since 2001, serves as eastern editor, a position he has held since August 2006. He started at The Packer as a staff writer after working for nearly a decade in commodity promotion at the Kansas Wheat Commission, where he was a marketing specialist.
Doug worked in radio and television news writing, producing and reporting for seven years in Texas, Missouri and Nebraska.
He graduated from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, in 1984, with a bachelor of science degree in broadcast journalism and a minor in history. He earned a master’s in corporate communications from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, in 1991. In college, he served as a news editor of the daily O’Collegian newspaper and interned in radio and television news departments.